More Articles

A judge rejected requests yesterday that leading Ohio Republicans, including U.S. House Speaker
John Boehner and the state attorney general, be forced to testify in a $100 million multistate
fraud trial.

An attorney for scam suspect Bobby Thompson, whom prosecutors have identified as John Donald
Cody, had tried to subpoena Boehner, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine and others in an attempt to
show that Thompson’s political donations were legal.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Steven Gall turned down the requests following a motion by
DeWine, who’s leading the fraud investigation.

Thompson goes on trial on Monday in Cleveland on charges of defrauding people who donated to his
Florida-based charity, United States Navy Veterans Association.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars flowed from him, his Navy Vets charity or its political action
committee, NAVPAC, to more than 50 mostly Republican candidates in 16 states, including DeWine.

DeWine’s office argued in its motion that Gall should block the subpoenas because there was no
indication the politicians have relevant evidence that can help the defendant.

Thompson’s attorney, Joseph Patituce, said the timing of the subpoenas was unrelated either to
an Associated Press article examining the decision by DeWine’s prosecution team not to emphasize
the donations in its case or to the subsequent call by DeWine’s political opponent for DeWine to
step aside in the case because he received donations from Thompson and his charity.

DeWine has called the political donations — whose recipients included George W. Bush, Mitt
Romney, John McCain and Michele Bachmann — “kind of a sidebar to the scam.” He said the state will
argue that Thompson scammed thousands of donors in the name of Navy veterans and pocketed most of
the cash.